Bitcoin is Antifragile
If one thing is certain, it is that bitcoin is humbling. It humbles everyone. Some sooner than others, but everyone eventually. Individuals you respect may have called bitcoin a fraud or compared it to rat poison but if it hasn’t been walked back yet, it will in time. For most everyone first considering bitcoin, the reality is that the proper context to evaluate it is practically non-existent, even for the most revered financiers of our time. Is bitcoin like a stock, bond, tech startup, the internet or merely a figment of everyone’s imagination? At first glance, bitcoin admittedly makes very little sense. It is very reasonably believed by many to be one massive collective hallucination. There exist two fundamental problems. Almost everyone lacks the baseline to evaluate bitcoin because there has never been anything like it, and very few, prior to bitcoin, have ever consciously considered what money is. Every day, people evaluate whether to invest in stocks, bonds or real estate, or whether or not to buy a home or car, or whether to purchase some consumer good, or conversely, whether to save. While there are exceptions to every rule, practically everyone is unequipped to evaluate bitcoin because it does not fit any prior mental framework. It is like asking someone with no concept of mathematics what 2 + 2 equals. It may be obvious to those that know math, but if not, it’s unrelatable. To make it even more difficult, bitcoin is so abstract an application and so far from a tangible phenomenon, that it is like staring into the abyss. Bitcoin is both difficult to see and impossible to unsee once discovered. But often the path from one end of the extreme to the other is a journey, where the impossible first becomes possible, then probable and ultimately inevitable.
Eventually, some chord is struck or some dot connected. As the fog begins to lift, there naturally remains the idea that, while bitcoin is possible, it is surely subject to high degrees of chance and more likely to fail than succeed. It is perceived to be inherently fragile and risky. Many believe that bitcoin could vanish as quickly as it appeared on scene. At the beginning of the journey, it seems to live somewhere between an aspiring long-shot and just one unidentified silver bullet away from complete and utter collapse. Bitcoin is novel and it is often thought of as untested and unproven. Launched in 2009, bitcoin seemingly lacks permanence. It is not yet anchored in time. But on the other hand, bitcoin has been around for going on twelve years and has a total purchasing power (or value) of $180 billion. Twelve years of operating history and hundreds of billions in value may still be an upstart, but it is far from untested and unproven. Instead, it is thriving in the wild without any central coordination, and it is the lack of central coordination that gives bitcoin its lifeblood; decentralization not only allows bitcoin to function, but it is also what causes it to gain strength rather than falter when stressed.
That bitcoin is natively digital and powered by computers running software capable of being shut down lends to the default impression that bitcoin is inherently fragile. The mental image of a computer network being unplugged creates the false sense that one day and suddenly, somehow bitcoin as a system could cease to exist when the opposite is true for the very same reason. That bitcoin both exists everywhere and nowhere, that it is controlled by no one, that anyone is capable of running the open source software from anywhere, and that hundreds of thousands of people do, relied upon by tens of millions (and growing) is what gives bitcoin permanence. With no single point of failure, bitcoin is practically impossible to stop because it is impossible to control, and it is a dynamic system that only becomes more redundant and further decentralized in time and with increasing adoption. In short, bitcoin is more permanent than risky because it is an antifragile system. An idea popularized by Nassim Taleb, antifragility describes systems or phenomena that gain strength from disorder, which is bitcoin to its core. There is no silver-bullet that kills bitcoin; there is no competitor that can magically overtake it; there is no government that can shut it down. But it does not stop there; each attack vector and shock to the system actually causes bitcoin to become stronger.
“Some things benefit from shocks; they thrive and grow when exposed to volatility, randomness, disorder, and stressors and love adventure, risk, and uncertainty. Yet, in spite of the ubiquity of the phenomenon, there is no word for the exact opposite of fragile. Let us call it antifragile. Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shocks and stays the same; the antifragile gets better. This property is behind everything that has changed with time: evolution, culture, ideas, revolutions, political systems, technological innovation, cultural and economic success, corporate survival, good recipes (say, chicken soup or steak tartare with a drop of cognac), the rise of cities, cultures, legal systems, equatorial forests, bacterial resistance … even our own existence as a species on this planet. And antifragility determines the boundary between what is living and organic (or complex), say, the human body, and what is inert, say, a physical object like the stapler on your desk. The antifragile loves randomness and uncertainty, which also means—crucially—a love of errors, a certain class of errors.” – Nassim Taleb, Antifragile
Bitcoin is an adaptive and evolving system; it is not static. No one controls the network and there are no leaders capable of forcing changes onto the network. It is decentralized at every layer, and as a result, it has shown to be immune to any type of attack. However, it is not just immune to attack or errors, bitcoin actually becomes stronger as: i) external forces attempt to influence or coopt the network; ii) as individuals within the network make errors; and, iii) as a very function of its volatility, which is often perceived to be a limiting, if not critical, flaw. As bitcoin survives shocks and as individuals learn from errors and adapt to its volatility, bitcoin becomes tangibly more reliable; its demonstration of resilience and immunity causes trust to be reinforced in the network, which increases adoption and makes bitcoin more resistant to future attack or individual errors. It is a positive, self-reinforcing feedback loop. With every failed attempt to coopt or coerce the network, the bitcoin protocol hardens and confidence increases. Every time bitcoin doesn’t die, that very event propels bitcoin forward, and in a fundamentally stronger state than previously existed.
Each exogenous shock to the network provides learnings that cause bitcoin to adapt in a spontaneous way, which can only be endemic to a decentralized system. Because bitcoin is decentralized and because it becomes increasingly decentralized as a function of time (and adoption), not only is there no single point of failure, but the increasing levels of redundancy ensure network survival and fortify it against future attacks. There is a positive correlation between time and the degree of network decentralization. Similarly, there is a positive correlation between the degree of decentralization and the network’s ability to fend off more formidable attacks. Essentially, as the network becomes more decentralized over time, it also becomes resistant to threats it may not have been capable of surviving in prior states.
Separately, each error within the system is isolated to the responsible parties, and as bitcoin grows, each potential point of failure becomes less critical to the proper functioning of the network as a whole. Weak points in the network are sacrificed and the system strengthens in aggregate. The entire process is made more effective and efficient because it is never a conscious decision. It is simply structural to the system architecture. No one picks winners and losers. Decentralization eliminates moral hazard and ensures system survival at the same time. At all times, network participants are maximally accountable for their own errors. There are no bailouts. Incentives and accountability optimize for innovation and naturally drive toward consistently better outcomes in aggregate. It doesn’t eliminate error, but it ensures that errors are productive, as the mere fact of survival affords that the network as a whole has the opportunity to adapt to threats and to immunize around them. Whether borne from exogenous shocks or internal errors, bitcoin feeds on disorder, stressors, volatility and randomness, collectively a hallmark of an antifragile system.
Bitcoin Benefits from Disorder
The lack of social order in bitcoin may be its single greatest asset. There is no CEO of bitcoin nor is there a centralized authority that controls it. There is no person or organization to drag in front of Congress, whether to answer questions or demand action. In fact, there is no Congress or legislative body with any influence over bitcoin, preferential or otherwise. It does not mean that any individual or company is immune from influence; nor does it prevent any country from attempting to regulate (or ban) bitcoin, but disorder insulates the network from external threats. While Facebook’s Libra is fundamentally plagued as a currency for reasons independent of government influence, the CEO and other top executives were quickly brought before Congress soon after its announcement to answer questions and with key legislators demanding the project be delayed, if not scrapped, over concerns of “national security” and other regulatory issues. It is not that CEOs and companies cannot coexist with government; instead, it is that the mere existence creates influence that could never exist in bitcoin at a protocol level, and the absence of which allows bitcoin to be viable as a currency.
“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust.” – Satoshi Nakamoto (February 11th, 2009)
With no central counterparties controlling the network, bitcoin functions on a decentralized basis and in a state that eliminates the need for, and dependence on, trust. Its distributed architecture reduces the network’s attack surface by eliminating central points of failure that would otherwise expose the system to critical risk. By being built on a foundation of social disorder and only in the absence of control is bitcoin able to function on a secure basis. It is the precise opposite of the trust-based central bank model. Bitcoin is a monetary system built on a market consensus mechanism, rather than centralized control. There are certain consensus rules that govern the network. Each participant opts in voluntarily and everyone can independently verify (and enforce) that the rules are being followed. If any market participant changes a rule that is inconsistent with the rest of the network, that participant falls out of consensus. The network consensus rules ultimately define what is and what is not a bitcoin, and because each participant is capable of enforcing the rules independently, it is the aggregate function of enforcement on a decentralized basis that ensures there will only ever be 21 million bitcoin. By eliminating trust in centralized counterparties, all network participants are able to rely upon and ultimately trust that the monetary policy is secure and that it will not be subject to arbitrary change. It may seem like a paradox but it is perfectly rational. The system is trusted because it is trustless and it would not be trustless without high degrees of social disorder. Ultimately, a spontaneous order emerges out of disorder and strengthens as each exogenous system shock is absorbed.
For example, in 2017, there was a civil war of sorts that emerged in bitcoin. Many of the largest companies that provide bitcoin custody and exchange services aligned with large bitcoin miners that controlled 85%+ of the network’s mining capacity (or hash rate) in an attempt to force a change to the consensus rules. This group of power brokers wanted to double the bitcoin block size as a means to increase the network’s transaction capacity. However, an increase to the block size would have required a change to the network consensus rules, which would have split (or hard-forked) the network. As part of a negotiated “agreement,” the group proposed to activate a significant network upgrade (referred to as Segwit – an upgrade that would not change the consensus rules) at the same time the block size would be doubled (which would have changed the consensus rules). With most all large service providers and miners onboard, plans were set in motion to effect the changes. However, a curve ball was thrown when a user-led effort prompted the activation of the Segwit network upgrade without changing the network consensus rules and without increasing the block size (read more here). The effort to change the network’s consensus rules failed miserably and bitcoin steadily marched forward undisturbed. In practice, it often cannot be known whether bitcoin is resistant to various threats until the threats present themselves. In this case, it was disorder that prevented coordinated forces from influencing the network, and at the same time, everyone learned the extent to which bitcoin was resistant to censorship, which further strengthened the network.
This episode in bitcoin’s history demonstrated that no one was in control of the network. Not even the most powerful companies and miners, practically all aligned, could change bitcoin. It was an incontrovertible demonstration of the network’s resistance to censorship. It may have seemed like an inconsequential change. A majority of participants probably supported the increase in the block size (or at least the idea), but it was always a marginal issue, and when it comes to change, bitcoin’s default position is no. Only an overwhelming majority of all participants (naturally with competing priorities) can change the network’s consensus rules. And it really was never a debate about block size or transaction capacity. What was at stake was whether or not bitcoin was sufficiently decentralized to prevent external and powerful forces from influencing the network and changing the consensus rules. See, it’s a slippery slope. If bitcoin were susceptible to change by the dictate of a few centralized companies and miners, it would have established that bitcoin were censorable. And if bitcoin were censorable, then all bets would be off. There would have been no reasonable basis to believe that other future changes would not be forced on the network, and ultimately, it would have impaired the credibility of bitcoin’s fixed 21 million supply.
That the most powerful players in bitcoin could not influence the network reinforced its viability, and it was only possible because of the disorder inherent to the system itself. It was impossible to collude or to coopt the network because of decentralization. And it did not just show bitcoin to be resilient, the failure itself made the network stronger. It educated the entire network on the importance of censorship resistance and demonstrated just how uncensorable bitcoin had become. It also informs future behavior as the economic costs and consequences are both real and permanent. Resources to support the effort turned into sunk costs, reputations were damaged, and costly trades were made. All said, confidence in bitcoin increased as a function of the failed attempts to control the network, and confidence is not just a passive descriptor. It dissuades future attempts to coopt the network and drives adoption. Increasing adoption further decentralizes the network, making it even more resistant to censorship and outside influence. It may seem like chaos, but really, social disorder was and will continue to be an asset that secures the network from unpredictable and undesired change.